


seeds in silence (exploded in riot)

by justbecauseyoubelievesomething



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Ark AU, Bellamy Blake-centric, Chopped Madness, Classism, Jack and the Beanstalk retelling, Villian!Kane, also they're children, but not explicitly romantic, sort of Bellarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23163427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbecauseyoubelievesomething/pseuds/justbecauseyoubelievesomething
Summary: Seeds. Not the modified seeds Farm Station constantly churns out in unending batches. Genuine seeds. Earth seeds.The kind of seeds that the scientists from Alpha will sell their souls for.Doctor Griffin talks a lot about genetics and lost patterns, but Bellamy’s mind is a million miles away. He can get anything he wants for Octavia and his mom. He can make it so Octavia doesn’t have to live in hiding. He can bring the chancellor himself to his knees, if he’s careful enough.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & Clarke Griffin, Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 13
Kudos: 21
Collections: Chopped Madness





	seeds in silence (exploded in riot)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of the Preliminary Round for Chopped Madness!
> 
> Character: Bellamy Blake  
> Theme: Canonverse
> 
> Tropes used in this round (with my specifications):  
> 1\. Fairytale AU (Jack and the Beanstalk)  
> 2\. Write a villain as a good guy, or a good guy as a villain (Marcus Kane as a villain)
> 
> I hope you all enjoy and consider voting for this fic! You can vote at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QLFJM7M!

Bellamy never knew his dad. He doesn’t remember hugs or bedtime stories or a warm hand on his shoulder.

He knows his mother, lying pale and cold on the floor of their apartment, dark-ringed eyes focused unwaveringly on his baby sister as she nuzzles piteously for milk. He sees the light catching on the thin band of silver his mother slips from her bony fingers and ties in a knot of fabric for him to carry. He feels the weight of that small wad of cloth in his pocket as he wanders up and down the rows of vendors in the trading hub.

He runs the pads of his fingertips over the ragged knot and tries to imagine what sort of man gave his mother this band. What sort of man wandered up and down these rows until he found the perfect ring? What would that man think of him now, with his skin clinging thinly to the sharpness of his ribs and eyes full of desperation? What would he think of Bellamy’s increasingly faltering footsteps as he walks past stall after stall, unable to let go of a simple piece of silver?

He can’t go back with nothing. He steels himself and thinks of his mother’s pale face and Octavia’s reedy whines.

As Bellamy turns to retrace his steps, the corner of his vision explodes in green. A table sits where he could have sworn there wasn’t one before, with an elderly woman attending it and smiling at him kindly. No food or scraps for sale on this table, only a small, potted tree.

It must be a tree, even though Bellamy’s never seen one before. The green is vibrant, limbs reaching out and upward as if the little tree can climb even higher into the stars. He finds his free hand reaching out to touch the leaves before he can think to snatch it back.

The old woman smiles and beckons him closer.

“Do you like the tree?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he whispers. It’s loud in the hub and there’s no need to whisper, but Bellamy feels a gentle weight at the back of his throat when he looks at all the green and it makes it hard to talk.

“You know that one day, we’ll take this tree back to the ground with us?” the woman matches his hushed tone. “We’ll plant it in the earth and the roots will grow for miles and miles. Longer than the length of all the stations put together!”

Bellamy tries to imagine such a little tree with such enormous roots.

“That’s impossible,” he breathes.

The woman shakes her head, still smiling. “I promise it’s not. On the ground, anything can happen.”

Bellamy wrinkles his nose and thinks about the ground, so faint and far away. A place where anything can happen sounds nice.

“I want to go to the ground,” he says and the old woman’s smile deepens. He likes the little wrinkles around her eyes.

She reaches out and pats his cheek softly. “Would you like to come and water the tree with me some time? Some of us still do, every afternoon.”

Bellamy feels a sharp pang of sorrow. “No, I… I can’t. I have school and then I help my mom and… stuff…”

“And stuff,” she repeats and he hangs his head as warmth blooms up his neck. It’s still hard to not mention Octavia. He hates to leave the tree, but he decides to leave before his tongue gets him in more trouble.

The old woman catches his elbow, not unkindly. “What are you selling, child?” she asks, glancing knowingly at his pocket.

A flash of protectiveness and pride almost makes him turn away without a word, but her eyes don’t hold pity. He’s seen too much pity.

He pulls out the raggedy bundle and pulls the knot apart carefully, unveiling the simple ring inside.

“It’s… it’s all I have,” he confesses and something about the words spoken out loud suddenly strikes him like a knife through his chest and it’s all he can do to hold back tears. The woman picks up the ring silently and holds it up to the light, gaze narrowed in thought.

She closes her fist around it quickly. “I’ll take it.”

Bellamy blinks and she’s producing a tiny bag from her pocket, even smaller than his own. She furtively shakes the bag over his open palm and five small black spots fall out. They weigh so little, Bellamy can’t even feel them in his hand.

“What are…”

“Wrap them up, boy!”

Her voice is so unexpectedly sharp that Bellamy complies without question, quickly wrapping the little things in his piece of cloth and tucking it back in his pocket. The woman puts her hands on each of his shoulders and stares at him with a piercing gaze. Bellamy notices for the first time that her eyes are green, just like the tree behind her.

“Trust me, child. Trust and believe and those...” she points at his pocket, “will carry you far.”

Something about this is right. He knows it just like he knows the green leaves are somehow more important than him. He knows it by the comforting feeling he gets when he slips his fingers in his pocket and grazes the knotted bundle of cloth.

“Mother.”

The man that steps up beside the old woman is stern, sharp-faced, and not happy to see Bellamy. Bellamy shrinks under the man’s piercing gaze.

“This section is for vendors only. If you want to preach publicly, you need an updated permit.”

“Marcus, we missed you at service yesterday,” the woman smiles cheekily. She reaches up as if to brush something off his chin. “Will we see you later today?”

Marcus catches her wrist and holds it firmly away from his face, but his eyes soften ever so slightly. “I have new recruits to interview later. I’m sorry.”

“Such a shame,” she tuts. She spares one more wink for Bellamy and then bustles away, melting into the crowd.

Marcus steps up closer to Bellamy, towering over him. Bellamy resists the urge to shudder in the man’s shadow.

Marcus scratches his chin before putting his hands behind his back. “Well then, move along, boy.”

For some reason, Bellamy’s heart doesn’t stop hammering the whole way home. Just like he can’t stop his hand from wandering back to his pocket and checking on the little bundle inside.

His heart hammers for a different reason when he unfolds the cloth on the table top to show his mother. Her gaze darkens and he thinks if they didn’t have to be quiet, she would have screamed.

Instead, she bumps Octavia up and down in her arms and bites off the ends of her words.

“This is all you got?”

“I…” His pitiable words to the old woman echo in his mind. “They’re all I have.”

His mother snatches one of the specks up and snarls at it before swiping all five of them off the table. They bounce across the floor, coming to rest in the crease against the wall.

“Your sister is starving and you gave away everything for these?”

She’s furious, quiet rage seeping through the cracks of her gritted teeth as she backs him against the table. Bellamy wants to cry, but he can’t. They have to be so very quiet.

“I’m sorry.”

She looms over him, a shadowy flame about to consume him. Then Octavia starts to whimper and his mother’s face draws itself into a set of thin, worn lines.

She sets Octavia in his arms and limps from the apartment without another word. Bellamy lets Octavia suck on his fingers as he shakes away the shudders of fear and carefully gathers up the handful of black specks. They’re firm on his bare palm, slightly oblong with pointed ends. His mother probably would like them thrown out the nearest airlock. Bellamy wraps them up instead and slips them back into his pocket.

They’re all he has.

Bellamy can’t remember when Octavia wasn’t sick. At least, it feels that way. Her cough seems to rattle every panel in the apartment and he tenses in fear, sure that the guards will come crashing through the door at any moment.

His mother is hardly home long enough to run her hand across Octavia’s fever-slicked forehead and slip her an extra water ration. Bellamy knows enough not to ask where she got it. Then she’s out again, moving on to scavenge for a pain pill or two.

Bellamy sits at Octavia’s bedside and watches her teeth chatter helplessly. He falls asleep with his head against her mattress and she wakes him with a coughing attack so rough that he’s sure it’s going to tear a hole through her chest.

“Water,” she mutters weakly, tossing her head back and forth. “Please, Bell. I need… water.”

“Shhh, it’s okay. Mom will be back soon,” he whispers. He tries to soothe her fiery skin with the back of his hand, but she pushes him away restlessly.

“Water,” she insists, voice rising a little higher before cracking into another coughing spell.

At this rate, they’ll be discovered before dawn.

His mother has been gone for hours.

Bellamy firms his jaw and stands. “O? I’ll be back. I’m going to find you some water.”

She groans and shifts restlessly under the thin blanket. She’s small for ten years old, too thin, even for a lower station kid. She doesn’t just need water. She needs food and medicine. A better place to sleep. Acknowledgement that she exists.

Bellamy lets himself out of the apartment softly, checking for his ID chip and the other small pouch he keeps in his pocket at all times. He has no idea how to get his hands on extra water. Maybe, if he waits in line at the medical center and fakes a cough, they might give him a bottle and send him on his way.

His steps quicken as he approaches the upper levels of Alpha station. With the late hour, the med center is dealing with only a few stubborn patients. Bellamy takes his spot at the back of the line and shifts nervously from one foot to the other.

He tries not to picture Octavia, fever wracking her body, bent double as she coughs into her sheets. Several long moments pass before even one person is admitted. Bellamy starts to pace, almost unconsciously, hand instinctively worrying at the pouch in his pocket.

Another half hour passes before a second person is admitted. Bellamy’s nerves are a mess. 

The teenaged escort comes back to the entryway and this time Bellamy barges his way forward, ignoring the cries of protest from the other visitors.

“Sir, can you please wait at the back of the line?”

“I need to see someone now,” Bellamy snaps, forgetting to slip in even one fake cough.

The boy recoils slightly.

“Please, sir, I need you to…”

“No! I need to come in right now!”

“Jackson, is everything okay?”

The woman who sweeps through the front door takes in the scene immediately and pulls her gloves off with a firm snapping sound. She pats the boy on the shoulder reassuringly.

“I can handle this one Jackson. Why don’t you go check on our flu patient again?”

Jackson seems all too happy to disappear back into the med center. The woman sizes up Bellamy and inclines her head.

“Why don’t we talk inside for a moment?”

Bellamy blinks in surprise. Is it really that easy?

But as soon as he steps through the plastic sheeting covering the entryway, the woman rounds on him, face twisted in anger.

“I don’t know who you are, young man, but I am warning you to stop causing trouble in my hospital this instant. If you’re not going to follow the rules, then I will be forced to call the authorities on you. Is that clear?”

Bellamy’s brain starts to catch up as he recognizes the woman. This is Abby Griffin.  _ The _ Abby Griffin. Most prominent doctor on the Ark and a council member to boot. He swallows thickly, ready to apologize. Then another vision of Octavia floods his mind’s eye.

“Ma’am… I’m sorry for the outburst, but… I really do need some… some water.”

Griffin arches a brow and crosses her arms. “You came to the med center to ask for some water?”

Bellamy shrugs stoically.

“Young man, I want you out of my hospital now!”

“No, wait, wait!” Bellamy scrabbles through his pockets, as if the answer is lying under his fingertips. “I just need one bottle. Please!”

“Don’t make me call security!”

Bellamy yanks his hands from his pockets, sending his ID chip and the little cloth pouch flying across the room.

“Sorry! I’m sorry!” He falls to the ground, frantically trying to grab his things. “Don’t call security. I’m going!”

His hand lands on the little cloth pouch and he remembers a flash of bright green eyes and one more idea comes to mind.

Before Griffin can yell at him again, he opens the pouch and shakes out one of the black specks.

“I can trade for it! Please!”

The air in the room grows so still that Bellamy can almost feel it clogging his throat. Griffin’s eyes widen and she closes the gap between them, hand closing tightly around his wrist.

“Where did you get that?”

Bellamy winces at her iron grip, but keeps his voice level. “Doesn’t matter. I just need some water.”

Griffin plucks the grain from his palm and holds it up to inspect it. Bellamy resists the urge to shift his weight. 

Finally, the doctor closes her fist around the small thing. “Do you know what this is?”

“I know enough.”

She eyes him skeptically, but doesn’t open her fist. He takes that as a good sign.

“You need water?”

Hope burns through his veins. “Yes, yes any you can spare!”

She jerks her head for him to follow her and he tentatively does, breathing in jagged rhythm as his heart continues to race unevenly. The doctor leads him into a supply closet and Bellamy tries not to gape at the shelves full of medicines and bandages. More than his entire station owns all together.

Griffin taps her foot and slides her payment into her pocket before grabbing two huge water bottles from a container nearby.

“Is this enough?”

Bellamy blinks twice at the water, surely two weeks’ rations worth. Octavia will have enough to drink and then some. Maybe his mom can finally stay home for a little while.

Maybe these things really are magical. Maybe he needs to see exactly how magical they are.

Griffin twists her lips to one side, still tapping her foot.

Bellamy takes a deep breath.

“And cough medication. I need… whatever you can spare.”

It’s a miracle, but he keeps his voice steady. The doctor’s eyes widen and for a few terse seconds he’s sure she’s about to throw the water in his face. Instead, she turns and rummages through a few supplies before handing him a package with six pills in it.

“Twice a day for three days,” she snaps. “Should help. Anything else?”

He doesn’t dare push his luck. He grabs the bottles and the pills and wonders what the hell just happened.

Octavia takes the first pill with no fuss and gulps down several mouthfuls of water before falling back to sleep. Bellamy knows it’s his imagination, but he thinks the rise and fall of her chest might be easier already.

He twists the pouch with the remaining four grains inside around in his hand, wondering. An unbidden memory of the little tree from years ago drifts through his mind; branches stretching out and upwards, roots growing deeper and deeper until they ran for miles. If these little beads are the key to climbing up and out, to somewhere new and better for them all, he’s not going to waste them.

He needs to know more.

When the lights are dimmed for the night cycle, the streets of Alpha Station are quiet. No late shift workers or black market dealers roaming this section of the Ark. Here the privileged sleep soundly, unencumbered by the furtive dealings of the lower station scum.

Bellamy tamps down on his irrational frustrations and raps on the door of one of the larger apartments.

Doctor Griffin doesn’t look happy to see him, but she doesn’t look particularly surprised either.

She yanks him inside, forgoing politeness. “Wait here.”

She turns and slips into a connected room and Bellamy feels another harsh beat of anger swell up in his throat as he imagines Octavia hunched in the tiny space under their floor. In a small act of rebellion, he refuses to give into his curiosity about the huge living space. Instead, he sullenly shoves his hands into his pockets and stares straight ahead at the wall.

“Hello?”

He nearly jumps out of his skin.

A girl, a good bit shorter than him, stands in yet another doorway, blinking sleepily in the glare of the overhead light.

“Who are you?” she asks and even under the sleepiness, he can hear the veneer of caution.

“I’m… I’m here to talk to your mom,” Bellamy says slowly, trying not to show too much of his surprise.

The girl tilts her head. Her hair is pure gold, held away from her face in a neat braid, silky ribbon tied on the end.

Figures, that the palace would come with a princess and all.

“It’s late,” the girl says.

Bellamy rolls his eyes before he can stop himself. “Thanks for letting me know.”

The girl inches backwards a step. Her eyes dart to the slightly open door behind him and then back to him and he realizes that she’s calculating what to do next.

What do do with this dirty, low-born boy before he becomes a permanent stain on her pristine palace?

He hates it.

Maybe he hates her.

“Why are you here?” she asks, crossing her arms. There’s a slight quiver in her voice, but she’s not backing down.

Bellamy appraises her again. She can’t be more than a few years older than Octavia. She looks like a different sort of creature altogether though, with her cheeks filled out and without the edge of her collarbone threatening to poke through the back of her shirt with its sharpness.

“I don’t know,” he finally answers truthfully. “I need your mom’s help.”

The princess purses her lips. Then she tiptoes by him smoothly, quick steps that hardly make a sound, to listen carefully at the far door.

“What are you-?”

“Shhhh,” she hisses and it sounds just like the sharpness of her mother’s voice.

She listens to the faint sound of voices for a few seconds, nose scrunched in concentration. Finally, she swings back to Bellamy.

“My mom is telling my dad something about seeds?”

“Seeds.” Bellamy instinctively reaches for his pocket. Seeds. Not like any seeds he’s ever seen.

The girl watches him intently. “It sounds serious.”

Bellamy tries to shrug casually, but the princess’s keen eyes are unnerving.

“Well, I’m sure they’ll come out and talk to me eventually. You can just… go back to bed?”

She crosses her arms with a huff and a flash of defiance and suddenly her and Octavia don’t seem so different.

“I’m not a baby. You can’t just… tuck me in bed!”

He can’t help the snort that billows up out of his nose and the princess looks mortified for a split second. Before she can start her tongue lashing over again, he mockingly bows to her.

“You’re right, oh great majesty. It is my greatest sorrow to have insulted the princess Griffin. Please, won’t you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

When he tilts his head back up to wink at her, she’s still frowning, but a slight blush creeps up her neck.

“Stop it. You’re ridiculous,” she mutters.

“Oh, what a cruel princess, to not forgive your tender-hearted subject.” He clicks his tongue at her disapprovingly and she claps her hand to her mouth as a smile slips through.

“Fine. Um… you’re forgiven, brave… knight?”

He grimaces and she laughs between her fingers. “What?”

“My name is Bellamy,” he says, slightly exasperated.

“Well mine is Clarke. But you can keep calling me Princess,” she intones, trying and failing to drill him with an icy stare.

“As you wish, Princess.”

Consulting with Doctor Griffin and her husband Jake, only brings more questions than answers.

Seeds. Not the modified seeds Farm Station constantly churns out in unending batches. Genuine seeds. Earth seeds.

The kind of seeds that the scientists from Alpha will sell their souls for.

Doctor Griffin talks a lot about genetics and lost patterns, but Bellamy’s mind is a million miles away. He can get anything he wants for Octavia and his mom. He can make it so Octavia doesn’t have to live in hiding. He can bring the chancellor himself to his knees, if he’s careful enough.

The Griffins take one more seed as payment for the information and their silence and Bellamy is left with three.

Three seeds to bring down a kingdom.

“What are you going to do?”

Clarke’s voice is becoming familiar. They sit in the dining room together, a scrawny wild-eyed boy made from dirt and a blue-eyed princess delicately tracing the tips of her toes along the floor.

Somehow, they find each other at meals. It’s better than eating alone and Clarke is the only other one who knows about the seeds.

“I want to make life better,” he says, because that’s the truth. For Octavia, is the part he doesn’t add.

Clarke taps her fork thoughtfully on the edge of the table. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think that you should save them and plant them when we get back to Earth!”

Bellamy tries for an indulgent smile and she kicks him in the shin. “Don’t look at me like I’m an idiot.”

“Fine,” he grits, rubbing his leg. That will definitely be a bruise later. “I think that’s a stupid idea. I’d rather use them to make life better  _ now _ .”

“Hmm…” She resumes swinging her legs aimlessly.

“I just need to figure out exactly what to do next.”

“Bellamy?”

“Do you have any serious ideas?”

“Bellamy!” Clarke’s voice sharpens into a warning and that’s all he has before he’s grabbed by the shirt collar and lifted clear from his seat. Before he can react, his assailant slams him into the wall, pinned with one strong hand pressed forcefully at his windpipe. There’s a quick clattering of chairs being abandoned nearby, but the man seething in his face doesn’t look away.

There’s something familiar about him and Bellamy’s mind struggles for a minute as he searches for the name. Marcus.

“Where did you get them?” Marcus spits viciously.

Bellamy tries to turn his face away to keep the spittle from coating his eyes, but Marcus is much stronger than he looks.

“Tell. Me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bellamy manages to grunt.

Marcus leans a little more weight against the base of Bellamy’s throat. His head starts to spin.

“Don’t lie to me, Blake. Don’t try to play games you don’t understand. Those things are dangerous. Do you understand me?”

Bellamy grits his teeth against the impending black out. Grey roars at the edges of his vision, but just before it swallows him, Marcus leans away and air comes rushing back down Bellamy’s throat.

He falls to the floor gagging. He can only hope Clarke made a speedy exit before witnessing that.

Marcus stares down at him impassively. “You think you can climb up into the ranks of the people who keep this place afloat and just tell  _ us _ what to do? You’re sorely mistaken, boy. Don’t forget the people who have kept you alive all this time. Don’t forget that we could stop keeping you alive any time we choose.”

The dining center is still covered in blurry shadows as Marcus spins and leaves. The floor tilts wildly as Bellamy tries to get to his hands and knees.

“Back off, people! I’ve got this!”

The spitfire voice cuts through the waves in his ears. Clarke’s cool hands brace his shoulders. She’s surprisingly strong for a thirteen year old and he doesn’t hesitate to lean against her for a brief moment. Somehow she gets him upright and the air seems to come easier that way.

“Clarke, I’m sorry. This is… this is too much. Too dangerous. You should probably stop meeting me.”

She pulls away, face a mask of fury. “I’m not just going to abandon you! I think you forgot, you can’t tell me what to do. I’m the Princess, remember?”

The words are too similar to Marcus’s. Far, far too similar. Cold washes down his spine.

“Did you tell him?”

“What?” Her eyes are wide as she backs away. “How could you say that?”

“Well how else would he have known?”

“He’s a council member, Bellamy! He has connections!”

Bellamy snarls at her and whirls away, ignoring the way the room ripples around him.

“Whatever, Princess. I don’t want you around anymore. You can’t help me anyways.”

He dreams of tree branches that grow so rapidly they punch through the sides of the Ark. Space sucks him through the hole like a vacuum and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe...

He wakes up to frantic pounding on the door. His mom is already bundling Octavia into the hole, despite her sleepy protests.

The flash of disheveled gold hair and rosy cheeks is the last thing he’s expecting to see.

“Clarke?”

“Bellamy.” She shoves her way inside, not even sparing a glance for his mom. “He’s coming for you.”

“Marcus?”

“Yes.”

“Bellamy,” his mom pipes up. “Who is this?”

“He can’t do anything to me, right? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Clarke is already shaking her head frantically. “He knows.”

“About the seeds. I know. He said…”

“No, Bellamy. He  _ knows _ .”

His world stops spinning, reduced to a distant buzz in his ears.

Bellamy never told Clarke about Octavia. But she knows. She knows because somehow, Marcus knows.

He’s going to destroy Bellamy’s sister.

Bellamy takes a deep breath and grabs his seed pouch from under his pillow.

“Stay with them,” he tells Clarke breathlessly, dumping the seeds in his pocket. She gives him a quick nod and he feels a flash of gratefulness, followed quickly by guilt. But there's no time for apologies.

His heart and feet pound in time as he runs. Taking too long. Climbing a tree into the stars to die. 

What can a boy like him do with a handful of seeds?

Marcus Kane stands in the middle of the Go-Sci ring, observing and giving quiet orders with his hands folded behind his back. He doesn’t look like an evil man. 

But Bellamy doesn’t look like a boy with something to lose, so looks don’t mean much.

Marcus’s eyes shine as Bellamy marches straight to him.

“Mr. Blake? What can I do for you?”

“I’ll give them to you,” Bellamy hisses. “I’ll give them to you if you leave us alone.”

Mr. Blake, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Marcus cajoles, but the corner of his mouth twitches into a sad reflection of a smile.

Branches crawling along the walls; crumpling, devouring. 

“I thought you didn’t want to play games,” Bellamy snaps. 

“Fair enough. The seeds in exchange for your  _ sister’s _ life.”

Bellamy’s skin crawls at the word sister, the way Marcus’s tongue makes it feel slimy. Unclean. Wrong.

He yanks the seeds from his pocket and flings them into the man’s face.

“Enjoy your  _ seeds _ .” He all but shouts the last word, turning more than a few heads. Bellamy leaves Marcus to scamper across the floor on hands and knees to gather up the fallen seeds.

This is far from over, but Bellamy only had one card to play and now it’s gone. He doesn’t have much time left.

The stars weigh heavy on his chest and he chokes.

The next time Marcus comes for him and Octavia, it will be the end.

One seed.

One single seed that stuck to the lining of his pocket. 

Bellamy twists it around and around between his fingertips, letting the soothing warmth of the sunrise wash over him.

The old woman was right. Anything can happen on Earth.

Like surviving a trip in a rickety dropship full of delinquent prisoners. Like reuniting with his little sister. Like reuniting with Clarke Griffin.

Like bringing a single seed back home.

As the sun peeks fully over the horizon, a gleam of golden hair appears from the trees.

“Princess.”

She smiles. “My brave knight.”

He kicks sheepishly at a clod of loose dirt. “I know this is stupid. But after everything it seemed fitting…”

She stops him with a gentle hand on his arm. “It is.”

They dig a small hole with something approaching reverence. He lays the seed to rest. Buried to rise again. Maybe a little like all of them. Something left to die, bursting forth in new life.

His hand finds Clarke’s and they fit comfortably. 

“Maybe someday it will grow high enough to touch the clouds,” she says, leaning her head contentedly on his shoulder.

He imagines climbing back to the ship in the sky, fingertips brushing the cold edges of the stars.

“Maybe.”

But if the Earth is as warm and bright as the princess pressed against his side, he thinks he’ll put down some roots right here.


End file.
